1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to projectiles, and more specifically to armor penetrating projectiles which contain therein high density rod penetrator cores.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, two types of armor piercing projectiles were utilized. The earlier designs were of a conventional projectile shape and were full-bore diameter, consisting of a lightweight material in the nose section and a hardened steel or high density material core behind the nose section forming the remainder of the projectile. This type of projectile had limited armor penetration capability. More recently it has been demonstrated that rod type penetrators fabricated of high density material are capable of penetrating more armor than the full-bore design. To take advantage of the rod's high ballistic coefficient and to provide increased initial launch velocities, sabots were designed to encapsulate the rod penetrator during handling, storage, and gun firing, and to discard shortly after exiting the muzzle, thus allowing only the rod penetrator to continue in flight toward the target. The sabot discard process can introduce trajectory inaccuracies for the rod projectile, as well as representing a mass-energy loss.
On the other hand, current full-bore projectiles utilize only the high density core for armor penetration. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a full-bore projectile wherein each major material component of the projectile contributes significantly to an increased penetration capability.